Snowden's Secret

SNOWDEN’S SECRET

               In a quirk of history, a man named “Snowden” has been in the news recently for leaking secrets.  This reminded me of another Snowden, a character in Joseph Heller’s classic World War II novel Catch-22, who also leaked secrets.  In fact, Heller’s character’s secret was a major focus of the novel, a mystery which the hero Yossarian was intent on solving and discovering its meaning.  As an American rear gunner aviator shot up over Italy, Snowden leaked his secret to Yossarian toward the conclusion of the novel:

Yossarian was cold too, and shivering uncontrollably.  He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor.  It was easy to read the message in his entrails.  Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret.  Drop him out a window and he’ll fall.  Set fire to him and he’ll burn.  Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage.  The spirit gone, man is garbage.  That was Snowden’s secret.  Ripeness was all.

    “I’m cold, Snowden said, I’m cold.”

   “There, there,” said Yossarian.  “There, there.”  He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.

   “I’m cold.”

   “There, there.” 

--Joseph Heller,  Catch 22 , (Simon and Schuster: New York, c. 1961), pp. 457-458.

Following the realization of the meaning of Snowden’s secret, Yossarian regains his spirit by taking action to follow Orr (the alternative?) to Sweden and refusing to participate in and facilitate the senseless carnage.

          Snowden’s secret is that we are subject to the human condition; we are flesh and blood.  When we overstep our boundaries, God or fate or nature puts us back in our place, often accompanied by much suffering.  Joseph Heller turned to the “humanities” in the form of literature for wisdom.  Note that he did not see science, math, or technology as the answer to our problems.  “Ripeness is all” is a line from William Shakespeare’s King Lear, and it roughly means that one must be prepared for anything.  Heller puns on Snowden’s name by referring to Francois Villon’s poem “Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis,” which includes the memorable line “But where are the snows of yesteryear?” with “But where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”  (“Mais ou sont les Neigedens d’antan?”). 

          So what is the meaning of Snowden’s secret for us?  If his first name is “Edward,” we don’t even know yet what the secret is because CNN informed us last night that Snowden is still leaking.  As for the meaning of Snowden’s secret, CNN also reported that comedian Conan O’Brien quipped that an unexpected, and scary, consequence of Snowden’s leaks is that sales of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 have skyrocketed:  Americans are being driven to read literature!  I hope that they also read Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.  It’s the least we can do for Snowden.  There, there.

Richard Brown"

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